I know, I know . . . it'll never happen, but I felt like it had to be said. As it is, I think Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is the single most impressive member of Congress in either chamber from either side. Witness Senator Coburn's recent article at Human Events (Warning: Reading this might make you cry):
Congress’s inability to distinguish what is a true national priority from a local, parochial interest illustrates this problem. For instance, while many Americans enjoy a bike ride on one of the bike trails in their local communities, few Americans would want to fund bike paths at the expense of bridge repair and maintenance. Yet, Congress did just that last year. By a vote of 80 to 18 senators went on record defending their right to earmark $12 million in new funds for bike paths instead of waiting until the more than 150,000 structurally deficient bridges were repaired.
Congress also last year voted by 68 to 26 to protect their parochial pork projects instead of ensuring that every child had private or public health insurance. The amendment I offered would have prohibited the $470 million worth of earmarks in last year’s Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill from being funded until the secretary of Health and Human Services certified that each child in America younger than 18 is covered with either a private or public health insurance plan. Despite a lot of rhetoric about the need to provide health care to kids, the Senate showed that it was more committed to its pork
The biggest lesson to be learned from Coburn is this: the money is there! Washington has enough money to fix nearly every problem we face from the national debt to health care. But as, Coburn says, too many politicians have put their local survival ahead of the country.
This is the "I bring him the bacon" phenomenon that our current and outgoing congressman from the 11th district has perfected, and it is indeed a bipartisan issue. Americans have become trained to believe that a successful politician is one that spends federal money on local projects. Entire states have been put on the federal dole (Alaska, Louisiana, New Mexico, Mississippi). Yet their senators and congressmen of both parties are continually returned to Washington because they buy voters alligiance with short-sighted federal projects over actually creating and sustaining growth in their states to help it grow from within. Look at how George Allen and Jim Gilmore revitalized Virginia, Bill Owens in Colorado, and especially Jeb Bush in Florida.
I don't know what it is, perhaps is a the way we are taught now. The defination of success for a politician is very different than from what the founders intended, I'm afraid. We care more about how much money they spend vs. how much money they save. Its almost enough to make me want to move to Oklahoma.
I still say he has the inside track for the Veep slot.
Posted by: D.J. McGuire | May 03, 2008 at 12:00 AM
D.J., as Chuck Colson once said, "I'd walk over my grandmother" to get Tom Coburn elected VP.
Posted by: Chris | May 03, 2008 at 07:32 AM